The Military Professional as Successful Politician

RICHARD THOMAS MATTINGLY, JR., and WALLACE EARL WALKER

T he world of national security policymaking is bewildering to pur­poseful military professionals. Socialized as they have been in field

units where norms of rationality, efficiency, and undiluted authority are predominant, professionals find Washington politics, if not repugnant, at least disorienting. The environment there is enormously complex, formed by a mind-boggling array of political institutions, public agencies, interest groups, and powerful individuals both inside and outside the government pursuing a variety of goals.

For the professional in this realm of national security policy­making, success is a matter of passionate concern. "Success" is perceived in many different ways.' For some professionals, it is defined in their own self­interest, that is, as promotion, prestige, higher income, and prospects for later employment outside the service. For others, it is the recognition that comes from advancing the interests of their organization. For still others, success is a sense of gratification that occurs with the promotion of the national interest, however that may be defined. Finally, many professionals are likely to perceive success as the happy coincidence of all these goals.

What follows is a description of the environment in which national security policymaking occurs and some of the successful strategies employed by military professionals in this realm. Our intent is to stimulate national security professionals to think creatively about success and about strategies for achieving it.

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The National Security Policymaking Environment

National security issues focus on the creation of national and international political conditions that will protect and extend vital national values. These issues encompass economic, diplomatic, and military dimensions and involve those measures taken by a country to safeguard its interests and objectives against hostile interests, foreign or domestic. One must be careful not to view any single policy as tied to only one dimension of national security affairs.2 Most policies operate in more than one dimen­sion. Military aid, such as the shipment of US weapons to Israel, is an example of the economic dimension of national security policy. Since these arms transfers can also affect the readiness of the US armed forces, they have an effect on the military dimension of US national security as well. Furthermore, arms shipments to Israel impinge on other nations in the Middle East and thereby affect US diplomatic concerns abroad. Such ripple effects between the various dimensions of national security are inevitable.

No one political institution or agency has the authority or reach to coordinate and oversee all the relevant activities within the various dimensions of national security policy. The Congress, the President, and the large number of national security agencies involved in the process attempt to develop national policies that provide, from their perspective, the all­encompassing answer to national security problems. The result is a series of US policies characterized by discontinuity, contradiction, and inconsis­tency; such policies fall short of the nation's security needs. No cohesive, coherent, and integrated national security strategy is possible. Such a state should not be surprising. After all, each organization in the national security policymaking process has different responsibilities, outlooks, and horizons.

The foregoing survey of national security dynamics is greatly at odds with the view that security planning is dominated by a rational process. In the rationalist view, our planners respond to international threats through a careful delineation of courses of action and comparison of those courses of action against predetermined criteria for choice. This ration­alist perspective fails to discern the predominance of domestic and

Major Richard Thomas Mattingly, Jr., is attending the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Previously he was Assistant Professor of Political Science in the Department of Social Sciences at the US Military Academy, He holds a master's degree in Public Administration from the University of Virginia.

Lieutenant Colonel Wallace Earl Walker is Professor of Public Policy in the Department of Social Sciences at West Point. Colonel Walker served as a White House Fellow in 1980~81 in both the Department of Energy and in the White House Office of Policy Development. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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bureaucratic politics in national security affairs. Presidents and members of Congress care more about domestic constituencies than Third World debt, the sensitivities of neutral, emerging nations, or, for that matter, allied reactions to US initiatives. One need only consider the lackadaisical US response to the debilitating levels of debt piled up by Latin American nations or to our annual reductions in foreign economic aid to confirm this point. Some professionals in some organizations may care about promoting rational processes, but public agencies and organizational leaders value other things much more highly, such as institutional prowess and individual advancement. In such a contest over values, rationality rarely prevails.

The many and varied participants in the policy process are each influenced by their own definitions of successful policy outcomes and colored by particularistic, organizational, professional, and political per­spectives. Samuel Huntington has observed: "Policy is not the result of deductions from a clear statement of national objectives. It is the product of the competition of purposes within individuals and groups and among individuals and groups. It is the result of politics, not logic, more an area than a unity.'" This competition, or game, as it has been referred to, determines who participates in policy decisions, what information is con­sidered, which options are examined, and how decisions are implemented. Apparent discontinuities between the interested players in the game and a final policy often have their source in the structures and processes of the national security system. Thus outcomes are seldom what any single player, or any group of players, would have expected. Indeed, the final product in national security policymaking emphasizes the dynamics of the decision­making process and its central features of compromise, negotiation, and coalition-building among the players. As President John Kennedy observed, "The essence of ultimate decision remains impenetrable to the observer­often, indeed, to the decider himself. '"

The great virtue of this system is that it produces policies that are tolerable to all the forces that have a stake in the outcome.' The interests and ideological assumptions of bureaucracies, governmental officials, interest groups, Congress, the mass media, the public, and the President and his national security advisors all play some role in the making of national security policy.6 However, the emphasis on producing policies that reflect a consensus, irrespective of the substantive content of the outcome, has tended to result in particular kinds of policies. Typically, they focus on short-range objectives, are of limited scope, and tend to be much like their predecessors. Such incrementalist policies are capable of only slow and marginal adaptation to new conditions. They are primarily effective in handling issues that are very much like earlier issues. Even with dramatic, unforeseen initiatives, such as the Nixon Administration's opening to China or the Reagan Administration's Strategic Defense Initiative, ultimate success means acceptance by national security professionals and the

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majority of Congress. Indeed, the policies that emerge often reflect the extraordinary complexities of a process that includes international issues and events, domestic concerns, and the nearly constant penetration of the American political system by global issues and forces. These external forces can range from the price of petroleum or the rate of inflation to questions of global survival.

Organizational Parochialism. An understanding of the parochial nature of organizations participating in national security policymaking is essential to recognizing the actions of the players in the process. Each agency in the national security structure shares three characteristics: it seeks to pursue its own goals, to enhance its own power, and to promote its own position in the government hierarchy. National security organizations are motivated by the desire to protect their own self-interests, and they define issues and take stands on them in a manner perceived to promote those interests. 7 This parochial tendency is natural, pervasive, and insures that the world and the issues of the day are seen from different perspectives.

Even within a given cabinet department there are natural rivals for claims on policy. For example, within the Department of Defense each of the armed services quite naturally values its contribution to the defense and security of the United States as the most essential and, therefore, seeks a larger share of the budget in order to best equip itself for any missions it might be called on to carry out. 8 Within the State Department this same parochial rivalry can be seen in the competition among the regional and functional bureaus for budget, personnel resources, and influence. Between cabinet departments, for example the State and Defense Departments, parochialism breeds competition. Far from being neutral or impartial administrators desiring only to carry out orders or maximize national in­terests, these organizations frequently take policy positions designed to maximize their own influence relative to that of other agencies. In Vietnam, especially after [961, most Defense Department officials sought a military solution, while most State Department officials, especially Far East specialists, sought to subordinate military measures to political and social programs. 9 What results then is an undeclared but understood competition between agencies for scarce resources, influence, and, ultimately, power. 10

The Dominance of Professionals. The professional executives and administrators who participate in the game of bureaucratic politics are late­career military, foreign service, and intelligence officers as well as policy analysts. It is the skills of these professionals which give national security organizations their problem-recognition and problem-solving capacities as well as their lore about prospects for policy success and future develop­ments. 11

Professionals provide ideas on policy alternatives and make recommendations that the principal decisionmakers can discuss and act on.

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It is at the senior professional level of national security organizations that day-to-day decisions are made and programs carried out. Professionals also playa direct role in crisis decisionmaking and in most major policy decisions through analysis of information and formulation of alternatives for the principal decisionmakers to act on."

The role of these senior professionals is extensive and decisive in the formulation and implementation of national security policy for four reasons. First, most routine decisions are delegated to senior professionals. Second, new issues within the organizational hierarchy take shape as they move up through succeeding levels of more senior professionals and are not drastically revised by the political executives, who are disposed to give their imprimatur to what professionals have already worked out. Third, political executives need reliable and specific information that has been processed, verified, analyzed, and evaluated by senior professionals who can draw on long experience and accumulated knowledge." Finally, decisions must be implemented by these same professionals.

Therefore, in the end, professionals concerned with foreign affairs and defense policy have a profound impact on policy outcomes. They generally develop their positions on national security issues and policies largely by calculating the national interest in terms of the organizational interests of the career services to which they belong, be it the branches of military service, the State Department, or the CIA. This is not to discount the influence of individual self-interest and personal motivations for job performance such as power, promotion, prestige, and money. However, the world view of national security professionals is more strongly dominated by their particular organization, which has socialized and trained them to adopt certain views and expectations about the world, the nation, and the role of politics. Thus their primary loyalty remains to their own career profession and to their organizations. Where several professions exist within one organization, the needs of the dominant profession are more salient.

For example, in the Department of Defense, career Army officers agree that the essence of their profession is ground combat capability, whereas Navy officers generally see their principal mission as maintaining combat ships to control the seas against potential enemies. Although professionals at all levels of both these branches of the armed services have an unquestionable devotion to national security, there is an inherent conflict between the two when faced with limited budgetary and personnel resources that both must share." Their definition of national security rests with skills and knowledge they have achieved through a lengthy process of training and socialization.

It is thus apparent that national security policymaking involves a struggle for power to control, and to influence those who control, national security decisions. It is the "art of the possible," the process by which the conflicting demands of various individuals and subunits in the national

March 1988 41

security apparatus are satisfied through compromise. Indeed, the use of the word "politics" in such a context reflects the fact that national security policy emerges from a process of simultaneous conflict and accommodation among the multitude of participating professional groups, each with its own competing viewpoint. Policymaking means bargaining; negotiations are required and deals must be struck. Negotiations occur throughout the executive branch as political executives and professionals in one department seek support for their position in another. Since no one participant is powerful enough to force a decision when disagreement exists among the participants, the eventual decision is a result of compromises and consensus. Jerel Rosati points out in his discussion of the participants in the SALT I policymaking process that national security policies are "political resultants" in the sense "that what happens is not chosen as a solution to the problem but rather results from compromise, conflict, and confusion of officials with diverse interests and unequal influence; political in the sense that the activity from which decisions and actions emerge is best charac­terized as bargaining along regularized channels among individual members of the government."" Thus decisions are the result of the pushing and pulling among the various participants as they attempt to advance their concepts of personal, group, organizational, and national interests. Further, as we saw earlier, such decisions tend to be incremental.

Since national security decisionmakers operate under conditions of uncertainty with regard to future consequences of their actions, incremental decisions reduce the risks and costs of uncertainty. Incrementalism is also realistic, because it recognizes that decisionmakers lack time and other resources needed to engage in comprehensive, or rational, analysis of alternative approaches to the issues at hand. Moreover, all participants in national security policymaking are essentially pragmatic, seeking not always the single best way to deal with an issue but, more accurately, "something that will work." Incrementalism, in short, yields limited, practicable, ac­ceptable decisions.

The consequences of such a national security policy process should not be alarming. The overwhelming complexity of the national security

Policy making means bargaining; negotiations are required and deals must be struck.

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machinery limits what members of various organizations can do and inhibits the disposition of political appointees to act hastily in circumstances where action may not be appropriate. Expeditious, even impulsive initiatives by presidents and senior political executives in noncrisis situations are seldom acceptable to Congress; the dominant rule in American politics is that consensus must be carefully built if initiatives are to be sustained. The fact that policy is formulated and implemented by a large number of individuals in a complex institutional arrangement reduces the probability of taking decisive action. Political executives and professionals within different agencies usually disagree: they want different policies, and they define the situation differently because of their differing vantage points. The result is that policy formulation often boils down to a tug of war among competing agencies." National security decisionmaking is a political game with high stakes, in which differences are usually settled with minimum costs to the participants.

Strategies for Success

Because of the variety of purposes among subordinate national security professionals and especially among career military officers, the game of politics remains intense, marked always by the presence of vested interests, interorganizational conflict, intraorganizational rivalry, and the elusiveness of a "best" national security policy. Nevertheless, senior professionals have developed multiple strategies for playing the game of bureaucratic pOlitics in national security policymaking. Participants report that these strategies will enhance prospects for individual success while at the same time advancing the purposes of their organizations.

Accepting Environmental Constraints. It is a simple fact that there exist certain boundaries within which individuals in the national security arena will have to operate during their careers. These boundaries will not change, so that successful national security professionals find it better not to waste time and energy objecting to them. Rather, such professionals take them as a given and go on from there.

The most fundamental of such constraints is, of course, the Constitution, which quite deliberately divides the making and im­plementation of national security policy among the different branches of government. One cannot lightly dismiss the abiding concern within the American body politic over the potential for abuse of power by any cen­tralized authority. American national security policy is profoundly in­fluenced by such values and ideals, which the majority of American people hold. Successful professionals accept the fact that the American national security policymaking system is based upon constitutionally mandated and publicly supported limitations that encourage deliberate program develop­ment.

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The concept of "rule of law" is another fundamental of American government. It means, quite simply, that national security professionals are constrained by law in the actions they can take to defend the country. The law takes precedence over military expediency. The investigation of the unauthorized sale of weapons to Iran and the use of the profits for assistance to Contra rebels in Nicaragua, as arranged for by Marine Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North from 1982 to 1986, is an example of the fact that government officials are not above the law and that legally suspect behavior is not condoned.

Successful professionals also recognize other constraints. The ideological and policy predispositions of senior policymakers affect program development and implementation. Therefore, political executives within the agency and in superintending cabinet departments are worthy of careful study. Savvy professionals seek to understand the background and operating agendas of cabinet secretaries, under secretaries, and assistant secretaries who work in their area of responsibility. To be able to decipher the tea leaves, professionals should seek answers to such questions as; What is the official's educational background and professional training? Where has he or she been employed? What were his formative experiences? How does he think about problems? What historical experiences most likely influenced his outlook? Are there particular projects that the superior is a strong advocate for or against? From answers to these questions, one can infer likely reactions to proposed policies or programs and the best ap­proaches for proposing new initiatives. In essence, gaining such knowledge is a boon to advocacy, a responsibility all professionals must undertake.

Professionals must also study and learn to accept the operating procedures of hierarchically senior staffs and executives. Thus, one might find frustrating the highly ritualistic methodologies of budget examiners in the Office of Management and Budget and staffers on the House Ap­propriations Committee, but wise professionals accept these groups and their methods as givens in the environment and find ways to work with them to achieve organizational goals.

In sum, national security professionals confront a number of immutable constraining forces in their daily activities. These forces define the setting in which each national security organization must operate. At times these forces help enlarge the role of a particular national security organization and at other times they limit the organization's activities. Professionals cannot view their organizations in isolation, but rather must understand them as being immersed in a total framework that not only imposes constraints, but also provides for opportunities-to those who learn and work within the system rather than fighting it.

Respecting the Process. Closely related to accepting the en­vironmental constraints is respecting the process itself. The contrived nature

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of national security organizations means that they contain inherent sources of conflict. The national security process can be more readily understood if relationships between national security organizations are viewed as an outcome of a continuing tug of war. The success of one organization in competition with another for greater influence and a larger share of the budgetary pie rests on its credibility, expertise, and effective and efficient use of resources on hand. Just as each side in a tug of war must carefully marshal its resources, national security organizations must position themselves to minimize weaknesses, capitalize on timing, coordinate in­ternal activities, and maintain constant effort to enhance organizational prowess. Not unlike the losing team in a tug of war, an organization can lose its enthusiasm for innovative ideas or may make a strategic error and em­ploy its resources at the wrong time. The implications of this analogy are that national security organizations are always subject to pressures for change. Thus, because processes are in flux, careful attention must be paid to them to assure that the directions of change are those desired.

For success, participants must accept the political nature of the national security policymaking process. Such acceptance will help the mid­level and senior professionals better accommodate to the diversity and seeming inconsistency of the goals that national security policy must pursue. Furthermore, such a recognition can save participants from excessive cynicism which cripples enthusiasm and fetters effectiveness. To be a successful player, one must jump into the game with both feet; he who hesitates loses his chance to play.

Conflict should not be perceived as solely dysfunctional to a national security organization. It can lead to heightened morale, and it can lead to solutions that are creative from both an organizational and national standpoint. In an analysis of the Air Force decision to purchase the A-7 aircraft, Richard Head points out that interservice conflict provided a powerful incentive to develop abetter, more efficient, and more capable system. l' Thus the national security professional is better advised not to concern himself with the issue of how to eliminate disagreement or conflict, but rather how to channel the inevitable conflict so that wider organiza­tional and national benefits may be attained.

Advancing the Organization. A national security professional, if he expects to succeed, must recognize that organizational advancement must be a central priority. Since national security professionals have a relatively narrow outlook compared to the President or even to cabinet heads, they are preoccupied with the unique importance of their organization to the overall national security mission. In their view, national security can be improved primarily through the recommendations provided by their organization. Thus, for example, professionals on the Department of the Army staff tend to take a jaundiced view of the sea mentality of the Navy staff.

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This loyalty to organizational goals is significant for national policy, because, in the absence of such a feeling of commitment by organizational professionals, their organizations are less likely to have a significant effect on national policy outcomes. Since each organization represents distinct values judged to be crucial to national security decision­making, the failure of professionals to take energetic positions may mean that all sides of an issue are not adequately represented, thereby skewing the input on which decision makers must act and producing unfortunate results. For example, the failure of CIA professionals to argue forcefully that the Shah of Iran was in considerable political difficulty in the late 1970s led to the nearly complete surprise of US decisionmakers, who did not foresee the Shah's precipitous fall and the subsequent installation of the Khomeini regime. Had these professionals acted more aggressively in espousing their views, a CIA failure might have been a CIA success."

Subordinate professionals are bounded significantly in their performance by the expectations of political executives. Demonstrated loyalty to the organization, its superiors, and its agenda frees professionals from unwanted constraints. When subordinate professionals come to establish a relationship of trust with political executives, a shared view of what needs to be done is developed. A relationship based on shared trust and loyalty reduces the need for detailed supervision and complicated machinery for approvals. It thus serves to simplify organizational operations and enhances professional scope and independence.

Developing Interpersonal Skills. Another essential skill profession­als must possess to succeed in the game of bureaucratic politics is that of interpersonal dealings." Obviously, most activities in modern bureaucratic settings place a premium upon the ability to relate to and negotiate with other people, but in the world of defense politics such skills must be honed to an extraordinary sharpness.

Interpersonal skills include the abilities to work effectively as a member of a group-that is, to advance one's organizational interests in the face of competing interests, to achieve mutually agreeable compromises, and to preserve comity regardless of the result. Successful professionals recognize that national security organizations are staffed by people who bring many different attitudes, values, and personal characteristics with them and learn to work with diverse personalities to achieve results. Part and parcel of possessing these interpersonal skills is being aware of the existence and implications of informal groups. Organizational charts may specify the hierarchical chain of command as well as communications networks and formal rules; but human friendships and peer group support alter these formal structures. Informal groups, unofficial supportive ties, and carefully cultivated personal relationships can be beneficial to both the organization and the individual because they can bypass ineffective people

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and augment a professional's influence so as to allow access to decision­making networks from which he or she might otherwise be excluded. Thus professionals learn to use these informal networks of associates to promote organizational purposes.

To build such networks, of course, professionals have learned that the directive, perhaps even authoritarian, style that served them so well in field units is no longer successful. Since no individual or agency is truly subordinate to another, decisions must flow from consensus and voluntary cooperation, which depend in turn upon friendly persuasion and mutual good will. One of the biggest shocks that a military professional can en­counter is to sit on a high-level interagency group and learn that his rank and ribbons-and the rank and ribbons of his boss-are virtually meaningless. He is thrown instead upon the bare resources of competence, reputation, and his powers to convince.

In lieu of the directive style, a consensus-building, work-along­with style is necessary. Successful professionals resourcefully promote a team spirit among the group of nominal adversaries and competitors within which a decision is to be made or a position generated. Such team play with the opposition may at first strike professionals fresh from line duty as horribly inefficient and hypocritical, if not disloyal. Seemingly every detail must be hashed over and compromised. Yet the end results are invariably superior because more human judgment is involved in the decision, and, with agreement forthcoming by all members of the team, implementation is likely to be more successful.

Thus, successful professionals find they must act like politicians­a fate that many at first find abhorrent. Without blinking, they must learn to persuade, to coax, to cajole, to bargain, to listen, and, yes, to charm. They must learn the fine art of log-rolling, horse-trading, and mutual back­scratching. In essence, successful military professionals must learn another side of leadership, a side that most politicians have learned from the beginning. That side of leadership is more persuasive than directive, more receptive than responsive, more disposed to conciliation and negotiation than to insistence and demand, more inclined to warmth and humor than to aloof officiality.

Learning to Negotiate. As we have seen, in the national security policymaking arena conflict is endemic and inevitable. Such conflict can become intensely bitter as human egos become interfused with organiza­tional pride and as human participants confuse legitimate organizational aspirations with their own individual need to win. Yet, in the absence of motivation that flows from strong emotional involvement in the issues at hand, participants risk ceding important organizational interests in the hope of maintaining what professionals are fond of calling "good working relationships. "

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One of the biggest shocks a military professional can encounter is to sit on a high­

level interagency group and learn that his rank and ribbons are virtually meaningless.

Perhaps the best exit from this muddle is what Roger Fisher and William Ury call "principled negotiation."" The ground rule of such negotiation is that each participdnt's interest be protected rather than that a particular decision, solution, or course be adopted. In such a negotiation style, participants refuse to be drawn into bargaining over the various positions that parties to the negotiation take. Debating over whether the other side's position is sensible makes no sense, because what is truly most sensible is never objectively establishable and attempts to establish it are merely likely to endanger ongoing relationships. Thus principled negotiation seeks to separate professionals as people from the problem.

Once professionals recognize that interests and not positions are at the root of the conflict, inventing options in which all may gain becomes more feasible. In essence the ideal strategy for both sides is a "win-win" outcome in which both win, and not a "win-lose" or "lose-win" outcome, in which one side loses. If both sides gain in the negotiation by advancing the organizational interests of all concerned parties, then negotiations have been a success and personal relationships can flourish.

Skill in the art of negotiation is a crucial precursor to professional success in the national security community. All organizations and their members should take the long view, recognizing that issues can both divide and unify them over time. One issue may divide two organizations today, but tomorrow another issue is likely to unify them against others. Thus, though conflict is endemic, it must always be layered over by a spirit of comity so that consensus, compromise, and the accommodation of shifting alignments remain possible.

Communicating the Organizational Vision. Professionals must possess the ability to integrate within a transcendent vision the organization itself, its purposes, and the people within it. Intellectual and com­munications skills-developed by a broad liberal education, by intensive self-directed study, by carefully selected reading, and by studied practice in writing and speaking-are essential. Successful military professionals have a sure grasp of their own craft and of the wider world within which their craft has meaning. They have a thorough understanding of their own organiza­tion, acquired not by hook and by crook, but rather through deliberate

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study. And they can express their ideas and convictions cogently and concisely, without lapsing into organizational jargon comprehensible only within the confines of their own organization. They also speak clearly and confidently; their presentations are articulate and well-rehearsed. Finally, these successful military professionals have learned to reason in a com­pelling way.

Vision is equally important in speaking for the organization. Vision is the ability to see the enterprise whole-its interconnections, the things that influence it, and the ways it influences others. It is the syn­thesizing faculty so sorely needed in the seemingly chaotic flux of security policymaking. This ability to see large things whole, to see them simultan­eously and with discrimination, may be the most important skill of all. 21

Maintaining Ethical Balance. Countless sermons have been preached on the ethics of public service. These sermons recognize that definitive policy decisions made by national security professionals often have at their base conflicting ethical issues, such as whether to give precedence to the public interest or to the narrower demands of profession, department, or self. Dealing effectively with such ethical ambiguity, that is, with the moral complexities national security organizations face, is a challenge to all military professionals. 22

The late Stephen K. Bailey detailed three ethical qualities which are applicable to professionals in national security policymaking: "optimism, courage, and fairness tempered by charity."" "Optimism" is the ability to deal with ethically ambiguous situations confidently and purposefully. "Courage" is the capacity to decide and act in the face of a wavering ethical beacon when inaction, indecision, or conformity with the herd would provide the easy solution. "Fairness tempered by charity" allows for the maintenance of standards of justice in decisions affecting the public interest. "The best solution," writes Bailey, "rarely is without its costs .... And one mark of moral maturity is an appreciation of the inevitability of un­toward and often malignant effects of benign moral choices. "24

The foregoing analytical approach should be reinforced by an "inner check"-the military professional's own internalized sense of responsibility to the public. We suggest that when decisionmakers are confronted with difficult ethical choices, they "talk to themselves" in terms of various standards or principles. Ethical awareness precedes ethical clarity. They may have to compromise particular values in a given situation (e.g. loyalty to superior or organization), but they can be reasonably comfortable in recognizing that other values (e.g. integrity and self-respect) are enhanced by so doing. This check reemphasizes that the national security professional is properly the public's servant, not its master. In the end, the national security community will prosper in effectiveness and public esteem only when its professionals police themselves.

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Conclusion

We have portrayed the national security environment and the process of decisionmaking in security affairs as a complex milieu dominated by bureaucratic politics. Such politics is not of the electoral sort, but rather politics played according to the rules of bureaucratic dynamics, involving as actors elected public officials, appointed political executives, and highly trained professionals, all competing for power and influence. Given these harsh but inevitable realities, those military professionals called upon to enter the game must learn to play by the rules-whether they like it or not­lest they fail. Such rules, what we have called strategies, are calculated to yield success in national security affairs, whether success reflects individual self-interest, organizational advancement, or the promotion of the national interest.

By accepting environmental constraints and respecting national and organizational policy processes, military professionals not only advance their interests but avoid debilitating cynicism and frustration. Recognition that organizational purposes must be advanced if the national security decision process is to function effectively can provide professionals reassurance that their efforts need not be thought of as parochial. In­terpersonal, negotiating, and communications skills-as reinforced by an ability to articulate the organizational vision-can promote effectiveness. Finally, the maintenance of ethical balance can sustain lifelong careers.

These strategies for success are far from novel. Democratic politicians have used them for centuries. In the final analysis, we are calling for professionals to act more like politicians, because, in fact, in the highly bureaucratized and politicized atmosphere of Washington, everyone who is a success is part politician, part bureaucrat, part specialist. Bureaucrats and politicians have a bad name. What we all forget too easily is that bureaucracy and complex government are virtually synonymous. We also forget that democratic politicians have sustained our nation for two cen­turies. In the process they have provided us more freedom than any other people at any time of history have ever enjoyed, economic prosperity that is the envy of the globe, and national security that has thwarted all enemies, be they foreign or domestic. National security professionals should set their sights by these achievements, not frowning on politicians, but rather seeking to be more political in the best sense of that term.

NOTES

We arc particularly grateful to David Kozak for his encouragement in writing this article. Thanks also to Daniel Kaufman, David Clark, and Kathleen Hogan, This article is adapted from Wallace Earl Walker and Richard Thomas Mattingly, Jr., "Strategies for Professional Success: Making It In National Security Politics," in Bureaucratic Politics and National Security, ed. Roy Stafford, David Kozak, and James Keagle (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, forthcoming, 1988),

1. Richard Hackman, "A New Strategy for Job Enrichment," in Perspectives on Public Bureaucracy, ed. Fred Kramer (Cambridge, Mass.: Winthrop, 1981), discusses motivations for individual

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success, Robert Trice, "The Policy Making Process: Actors and Their Impact," in American Dejense Policy, ed. John Reichart and Steven Sturm, 5th ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1983), states that the focus of most national security professionals is the nation as a whole and that they base their policy positions and actions on "national interests,"

2. On this point see George C. Edwards and Wallace Earl Walker, cds., National Security and the U.S. Constitution: A Bicentennial Reappraisal (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, forthcoming 1988); and Daniel J. Kaufman, Jeffrey S. McKitrick, and Thomas J. Leney, eds., U.S. National Security: A Frameworkjor Analysis (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1985), chap. I.

3. Samuel P. Huntington, The Common Dejense (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1961), p. l. 4. As quoted in Graham Allison, Essence ojDecision (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971), p. i. 5. Francis E. Rourke, Bureaucracy and Foreign Policy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1986);

and John Spanier and Eric Uslaner, American Foreign Policymaking and the Democratic Dilemmas, 4th cd. (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1985).

6. There are others who playa role. The academic world, the world of research in universities, has an influence and participates in the process. Most of the more effective political actors on Capitol Hill have academic experts whom they regularly consult. Other institutions do research of all kinds on con­tract with the government; they are staffed by national security policy "experts" and include the Rand Corporation, the Hudson Institute, the Brookings Institution, and the American Enterprise Institute. On this point. see Wallace Earl Walker and Andrew Krepinevich, "No First Use and Conventional Deterrence: The Politics of Defense Policymaking," in The Presidency and National Security Policy, ed. Gordon Hoxie (New York: Center for the Study of the Presidency, 1984). Also see Wallace Earl Walker, "Domesticating Foreign Policy: Congress and the Vietnam War," in Democracy, Strategy and Vietnam, ed. George Osborn et al. (Boston: Lexington Books, 1987).

7. Morton Halperin, Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Washington: Brookings, 1974). Also, Vincent Davis, "The Politics of Innovation: Patterns in Navy Cases," Monograph no. 3, in World Afjairs (Denver: Univ. of Denver, 1967). For example, a Navy project officer's success in securing ap­proval for a program to establish the Navy's role in strategic nuclear bombing was due primarily to the organizational environment and astute, parochial bureaucratic maneuvering by some of the participants.

8. For discussion of interservice rivalry see Halperin, pp. 26-62; Samuel Huntington, "In­terservice Competition and the Political Roles of the Armed Services," American Political Science Review. 55 (March 1961), 40-52; and John C. Ries, The Management oj Dejense (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1964), pp. 129-92.

9. Roger Hilsman, To Move a Nation: The Politics of Foreign Policy in the Administration oj John F. Kennedy (New York: Doubleday, 1967). pp, 28-34.

10. Halperin, especially chaps. 2-4, 11, and IS; and Wallace Earl Walker, Changing Organizational Culture (Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1986).

11. Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1957), pp. 8-18.

12. Harry Wriston, "The Secretary and the Management of the Department," and Don K. Price, "The Secretary and Our Unwritten Constitution," in The Secretary of State, ed. Don K. Price (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1961), pp. 76-112 and 166-90, point out tt~ importance of subordinate professionals in the analysis and implementation of a policy decision.

13. Frederick C. Mosher, Democracy and the Public Service (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1968). 14. See Halperin, pp. 26-62, and Huntington, The Common Dejense, pp. 123-96. 15. Jerel Rosati, "Developing a Systematic Decision-Making Framework: Bureaucratic Politics in

Perspective," World Politics, 33 (January 1981), 234-52. 16. See Charles Kegley. Jr., and Eugene Wittkopf, American Foreign Policy: Pattern and Process

(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982), chap. 13, re consequences of organizational decisionmaking. 17. Richard G. Head, "The A·7 Decisions," in American Dejense Policy, pp. 613~25. 18. Gary Sick, All Fall Down: America's Tragic Encounters with Iran (New York: Random House.

1985), and William H. Sullivan, "Dateline Iran: The Road Not Taken," Foreign Policy, 40 (Fall 1980), 175-86.

19. Amos Jordan and William Taylor, American National Security (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1981), pp. 209-14.

20. Roger Fisher and William Ury, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (New York: Penguin Books, 1983).

21. Interview with a senior OMB official who bad many occasions to watch a variety of political executives and national security prOfessionals in action.

22. Chester 1. Barnard, The Functions oj the Executive (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1938), p. 272.

23. Stephen K. Bailey, "Ethics and the Public Service," in Public Administration, ed. Roscoe C. Martin (Syracuse, N. Y.: Syracuse Unlv. Press. 1965), pp. 283-98.

24. Ibid., p. 298.

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